I301

Blanche Stuart Scott

First American Women Aviator

Winter 2025 Mail Sale Commentary 

Lot 3 1301 — Blanche Stuart Scott and J301 — Glenn Curtiss (addressed covers) — 12-30-80

This is perhaps the most unique and interesting lot in this mail sale. It has to do with the issue of addressed vs. unaddressed envelopes that was brought up last year when a group of addressed covers was found and announced to collectors. These two covers were not part of that group and were produced and sold to Collins collectors as addressed (to Fred Collins) many years ago due to an unusual set of circumstances.

To very briefly relate how they came about, I had always appreciated addressed first day covers but produced my envelopes with no address due to the wishes of my collectors in the hobby. My friendship with pioneer cachetmaker Professor Earl Planty (the Dean of first day cover 'collecting) included many discussions on the subject. As I relate on pages 140 and 141 of my book, "Earl frequently championed the desirability of the addressed cover and chided those cachetmakers who were almost universally abandoning this practice.....I like addressed FDCs and said so in my offering sheet for aviation pioneers Blanche Stuart Scott and Glenn H. Curtiss....A heavy and all-encompassing fog made travel to Hammondsport, New York impossible for the Scott and Curtis stamps. I attempted it at 7 p.m. on December 29, 1980 and again a few hours later at 3 a.m. Since it became necessary to send my covers in, I decided that, in honor of Earl's longheld views, I would make them a permanent personal statement against the taboo of so much controversy — the addressed cover. I stated flat out that 'Earl Planty has often championed the addressed cover in his Inside Coverage and elsewhere' ....As a result, because of a quirk of nature in the form of a dense fog, two very important Collins covers came into being. All of my Scott and Curtiss FDCs bear a permanent address to their producer and will forever stand as tangible

Blanche Sturt Scott (1301) and Glenn Curtiss (J301) continued 

collectibles that are linked directly to the Earl Planty philosophy that First Day Covers should be addressed. They are now dedicated to his memory."

Bottom line: All of the covers for both of these early aviation pioneers are hand stamp addressed to Fred Collins at my previous address. They are very early Collins covers, and they have an interesting story.